Peterson Michael1943

American novelist who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his second wife, Kathleen Peterson, on 9 December 2001. After eight years, Peterson was granted a new trial after the judge ruled a critical prosecution witness gave misleading testimony. In 2017, Peterson submitted an Alford plea (a guilty plea entered because sufficient evidence exists to convict him of the offense, but the defendant asserts innocence) to the reduced charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to time already served and freed. Petersons case is the subject of the French documentary miniseries The Staircase, which started filming soon after his arrest in 2001 and followed events until his eventual Alford plea in 2017. In 2019, he released his own account of his life since his wifes death in an independently published memoir, Behind the Staircase. The Staircase, a 2022 miniseries featuring Colin Firth and Toni Collette, also takes this murder case as its subject. Several other documentaries have been produced about Kathleens death, including a sequel to the 2004 French documentary, podcasts, radio shows and other media. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less